Before you plan your election party, make your peace with the fact that a poor outcome could put a total downer on the evening. Just by the laws of the unbiddable psyche (Malcolm Gladwell could probably explain this), some people will blame you for the whole government just because they were at your house when it happened. There. Ready?

Telly

If you have a telly and a computer, you can put the serious channel on the big screen and then some amusing thing on the small one (I personally will attend BBC1 for the serious stuff. Maybe I like Jeremy Vine's psephological hand-flapping, maybe I don't. I don't like mulled wine or Pimm's. But I will still drink them, at the onset of the appropriate season. It's all about fixing some unalterables in your life, isn't it? So you don't, I don't know, fly away.) Most people will go to Channel 4 for their comedy election. I am gonna skip the second telly and just use the kitchen area for people with incredibly loud voices who will shout over the main telly. Comedy is all very well if you're on your own, but you know, you get your friends round, then sit together, waiting for other people to make you laugh. It's like the saying: "why buy a dog and bark at burglars yourself?" Nope, sorry, it's the opposite of that. It's "why buy a dog if you already have a raft of your own measures for frightening burglars?"

Food

It isn't meant to be blue. Ha. You could probably confect some kind of aesthetic conceit, have giant bowls of crisps dyed blue, stimulate a physical echo of the revulsion you feel at modern Conservatism. But it's a bit one-note, and what a waste of crisps! I am going to do colour-themed florentines (you can get blue glace cherries), and leave it at that. Everything else will be regulation colour, and very simple. I hark back to the 60s, when finger-food wasn't status-sensitive, when even cabinet ministers (probably) served Ritz crackers. All you need is something salty, really.

Wotsits, and florentines. What's not to like? Yeah, that was before I realised Clegg rhymed with egg. Now I'm thinking crisps, biscuits, devilled Cleggs.

Drink

The problem is the sheer length of the night: you ideally want something you could drink for eight hours, straight, without becoming incapable. I don't know about you, but I personally am five years older than I was last time there was an election, and pretty much the only thing I can drink for eight hours without becoming incapable is Dioralyte. I am going for a low-percentage prosecco, turned multi-coloured with liqueur. Of course it hasn't passed my notice that red wine is already red, and white wine is already yellow. So it wouldn't be the work of Hercules to just get some blue alcopops.

Gaming

I tried election phrase bingo, it only works if everybody is sitting still and concentrating. That would be a good game for people who were very easy to discipline, imagine, say, 30 Victorian children. If those are your guests, you might want to rethink your drinks. For regular, lawless guests, who won't concentrate on anything, I'm going to try upping the stakes a bit (come on, it's only a government . . .) with gambling. Some kind of sweepstake, where everybody is matched to an MP that they wear as a badge (choose those ones that in early, Congleton and stuff) and then if you win, you get three quid and a big cheer. You could also open a book on the likely outcome (you can get the odds from a bookies, but you have to make it clear that you've done so, that you're not actively willing a 20-seat Tory majority). The good thing about this is that nobody will stay 'til the bitter end, so however much you win or lose, you'll end up with all the money.

Etiquette

It sounds like a big deal, doesn't it, you imagine everybody's rooting for one side, then it turns out there is someone who definitely isn't. And they either get incredibly defensive and start trying to talk about policies (People! This isn't the night), or else they're very quiet and furtive, like a Millwall supporter in a West Ham pub. I'm going to enforce a devil's advocacy rule: you have to argue and cheer and suchlike, vigorously, in support of everybody except the party you voted for. It will still be pretty obvious who thinks what, but I feel that saying the exact opposite of your view takes the heat out of things a bit. I very much doubt this will happen.

When will they go home?

They'll leave when they want. Your party officially lasts until the results are in, so in the event of a postal-vote snarl up, that could be a week. Don't fight it. Give in.